


You Are Organic

by Spiderboat



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Albinistic!Cecil, Disabled!Cecil, Gen, M/M, POCecil, navajo!cecil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 07:19:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1183448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiderboat/pseuds/Spiderboat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humanity isn't as cut-and-dry an experience as you might think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are Organic

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I am a white author with albinism and many of the experinces Cecil goes through in this story are based on my personal experiences. I have also done reading on the experiences of people of color with albinism and, while I do not believe I speak as eloquently as they do on the subject, I have at least brought some kind of justice to the table. This is a very personal and important piece to me and I hope you enjoy it as well as learn something from it.

That asshole, that skeeze, that... that big jerk. 

Clutching his faded green baseball cap top the top of his head and clumsily slapping his cane against the stairs, Cecil G. Palmer clambered down the stairs of Night Vale Public High School. His boyfriend - no, his ex-boyfriend, Steve, had just broken up with him to get together with some freshman werewolf that was rumored to have mange. The thought of her matted, greasy fur pouring over the neckline of her tight, pink tank top, was enough to make Cecil forget his place, and he tripped down half the staircase.

Slamming into the blue and black speckled tile floor, Cecil tucked himself tight into the corner of the bottom staircase. It looked over the school's tennis court, now unusable due to a sudden but highly contained pool of lava. He didn't even bother to fold his collapsable cane into fours as he sunk to his feet. Instead, Cecil let it hang over his long, lanky legs as he rubbed his eyes. He took his thick, brown-framed glasses off and sniffled. Fifth period could wait as long as Pamela the Hall Monitor didn't catch him.

Maybe his brother was right. Maybe Cecil was just a big, loser nerd. Steve was his first boyfriend, they had been together for three whole months. And what did he say to break up with him? "No offense, but you're just a little bit too... I dunno. Too weird-looking."

It was enough to make Cecil laugh nastily. Too weird. Ha.

But maybe he was.

Cecil looked down at his large, pale hands. He was reminded of a photo he saw once of a German Shepherd puppy, and how his father had told him that the dog's big paws meant that it might be small now, but it would grow into a big, powerful dog. Cecil was growing tall, already towering over his brother and his sisters at 5'11", but when Cecil looked at his hands, he couldn't help but wonder, why couldn't they just be brown like the rest of his family? He came from a family of proud Navajo people, with brown skin and black hair, but Cecil was of pale skin and white hair. And oh, if only that was the end of his problems. Eye problems, skin sensitivity, and bearing the facial structure of a Navajo in skin so many perceived as belonging only to European settlers made Cecil the black sheep of the family. Or white sheep. Whatever.

Cecil licked at the gap between his front teeth and curled up in a ball, burying his face in his knees. Who was he kidding. No one could ever look at him the way he looked at other boys. Cecil was too weird even for his town. But where could he go? What could he do? Anyone who tried to leave Night Vale seemed to get killed, turned right back around, or sucked into a sudden tear in the time-space continuum. 

Rolling the ball at the end of his cane between his fingers, Cecil sighed and shut his violet-gray eyes. Maybe he should just go home.

Reaching into his bag and pulling out some leftover Big Rico's Pizza that he saved for when the bullying at school got to be too much, Cecil bit into the slightly moldy crust and waited for the nauseous feeling to set in.

\---

"God, Cecil, what did you expect?" Robbie chided. "I told you he wasn't gonna stay with you."

"Easy," Cecil's mother said, shooting a glance at her black-haired son. "It's not Cecil's fault. That settler boy is just like the rest of them. Not good enough for my child, no."

Cecil knew they were trying to comfort him, but he still felt like sinking under the table. His baby sisters were playing leap frog in the living room, too busy to notice his petty troubles. "Mama, I still don't feel well," Cecil only half-lied. "Can I please go lay down in bed?"

His mother turned to look at him, and Cecil was fixed on her long, black ponytail, the way strands of gray slit down the middle of it like a knife in the midnight sky, and the way it was so, so unlike his own. She walked over to his seat and ran her fingers through the lock of hair on his forehead that never quite caught up to the rest of his hair. "Of course," she replied, softer than usual. "Do you want Dad to save your dinner?"

Cecil shook his head. "No, I'm sorry."

"It's all right. Go, get your homework done, and go to bed." She kissed his forehead and cupped his awkward, not quite chubby but not quite angular face in her rough, hard-worked hands.

"Thank you, Mama."

Cecil walked into his dark, small bedroom at the end of the hallway and turned on his desk lamp, which was always pointed at the wall due to how bright the bulb was. He plopped his gangly form unceremoniously on his bed and tucked his baseball cap to his chest. "Why can't I just be normal!?" he groaned, hiding his face in his pillow. He tried to be strong like his dad, like his grandfather, like all of the brave men in his life, but a hitched whine escaped from his red lips and he felt his cheeks began to burn with hot, angry tears. His weakness turned him sour and it broke him even more, and eventually he found himself crying aloud and staining his pale blue pillowcase.

Cecil remembered how his very first memory was of when he was a small baby, his mother was holding him against her chest. He was sleepily laying his head against her collarbone, and had his hand splayed out against her chest. His eyes as a baby were awful, enough that he hardly ever cried or had fits, but he noticed his small, pale hand against the swell of her brown breast, and there was that twinge of awareness inside him, that feeling that he was someone not his mother, that he was one and his mother was another.

Everything in his life was affected by his skin, his eyes. Cecil longed from the marrow of his bones out to simply be normal. To look like the Navajo man he was supposed to be. He remembered once that Steve had said, "You know, Cecil, I don't see you as native. You're too white."

Cecil had felt stung. "But I'm Navajo," he replied.

Steve shrugged. "Sure, whatever."

Cecil growled and punched his pillow. That asshole! How dare he! How dare he!

\---

Years had passed since that day. Cecil had grown into a tall, angular man. At 6'7", Cecil had grown into himself, thought he was still awkwardly tall. He was 33 and the gap between his front teeth had never closed. He had to crouch at press conferences so he could look through his monocular and see what was going on but not block the view of others.

But, he had a job, a good job, a steady job, working as a radio host. He had a job where everyone could know him but no one had to see him. And that, he supposed, was for the best. Those stone tablets outside of city hall had at least done something right.

Memories were usually fuzzy for everyone in Night Vale. Constant re-education from the city council did that to everyone. He knew this, but even so, sometimes, Cecil would pour over olive and beige-covered photo albums and flip through them. He saw younger versions of himself in them, as it was pretty hard not to recognize Cecil in photos, but who were these other people? This man with a jawline like his, this woman with the long, black hair tinged with silver, this boy with a red T-shirt for some punk band, these twin girls in pink and yellow dresses?

But when he tried to question these things, a sound like wasps filled his head and he began to weep blood, and so he would close the albums and go back to reading approved books.

It couldn't be that important.

\---

He considered Old Woman Josie one of his best friends. Perhaps it was her unending optimism, or her poor vision that prevented her from seeing him clearly, or how shockingly good of a bowling coach she was, but Cecil felt a certain duty to her. So, every week, he would go to the Ralph's with her and help her with her grocery shopping. It was really quite hilarious, as it was the legally blind leading the totally blind. They would walk through town together, Josie holding Cecil by his elbow while they tried to avoid crashing their canes together. They would pass by Winifred the Werewolf's Flower Shop, which was always stocked with nothing but one especially large Venus fly trap. She was nice enough, but for some reason, Cecil just had a dislike for her.

They would go into the Ralph's and Josie would read off of her Braille list of groceries, and Cecil would put them into her cart and use his magnifier to check expiration dates for her. They would then "accidentally" forget to empty the plastic bags out of the shopping cart and walk all the way back to Josie's house with it, and Cecil would put everything in its proper place for her.

It was a weekly routine that Cecil didn't mind, as he quite enjoyed Josie's company, but Josie always said, "I'm sorry to trouble you like this, Cecil. Why don't you stay for dinner?" And Josie would cook for Cecil using her ever-growing array of beeping and buzzing cookware for the blind. Cecil offered to help, but she would shoo him away. "Let me do at least this for myself," she would say, and he would instantly understand. The need for independence was mutual.

Finally, around six P.M., they would sit down for a simple meal, and Cecil would try not to grin as Josie clinked her fork against her septum piercing when trying to find her mouth. There was no way she missed that often by accident, and Cecil figured she probably did it on purpose to make him laugh. Her wrinkled Romani features would light up, and she would tell him stories of what little she remembered before moving to Night Vale, and sometimes they would talk about bowling strategies, and sometimes they would talk about Cecil's job and how Josie wished she was able to work again, like she had before the glaucoma. "It sounds like a nice gig," Josie would say, "but it robs you of the freedom to choose whether or not to be productive. You have that freedom, Cecil. Never take it for granted."

"I won't," Cecil promised. "Not ever." Cecil always kept his promises.

\---

A new man came into town today.

Well, that was a bit of an understatement. A new man and several men and women and one person who Cecil assumed was really neither moved into town today. They wore white lab coats and plastic goggled and carried brown clipboards. Cecil was drawn, however, to the one man who seemed to be their leader. He was short, probably about five feet tall, with a square chin and a round body and a spunk and enthusiasm in his body language that Cecil hadn't seen in a grown man in years. Cecil felt butterflies start to swarm in his belly, a violent hummingbird began to break the cage that was his ribs, and also his heart started beating very fast.

He pushed his dark sunglasses over his eyes and pulled his huge purple hat over his face, suddenly feeling so horribly out of place. How could anyone not notice the tall Native guy with white hair and day-glo clothes?

The man turned in his direction, and Cecil gulped. But instead of giving him a skeptical look, or approaching him with a myriad of questions (all of which Cecil was ready to answer - "No, I am not white, yes, I'm fine in these clothes, I don't think the color of my pubic hair is any of your business, thank you."), he simply pointed at his hat and smiled. Cecil reached up and touched it questioningly. The man nodded, and smiled, and Cecil felt like for once it wasn't the desert heat about to make him melt.

\---

Okay, so maybe Cecil had fudged his description of Carlos on his radio show. Carlos's jaw as actually not square at all, it was just that his dark beard had made it appear that way. He was actually rather round and chubby in the face, which was fitting for the rest of his body, and his teeth weren't like a military cemetery. (But they were still nicer than Cecil's, which still had gaps and always looked yellow because of his skin.) But that didn't make him any less attractive to Cecil. In fact, Carlos reminded him of a soft teddy bear. But a manly one. A manly teddy bear. Without the poison barbs in its eyes to teach children that the world is a cruel place full of deceit and lies.

Cecil felt desperate to accidentally run into him on the street, just to see him again. He was such a kind fellow, really, and he never said a word about Cecil's albinism. In fact he seemed much more interested in the wildflowers in Cecil's hat that would usually hiss at strangers but purred when Carlos came by. "Are those real?" Carlos had asked the first time they'd met properly and exchanged names.

"Ah, yes," Cecil replied, twisting his hands around the rubbery-plastic handle of his cane. "They usually spit embers of flame and hiss but they seem unusually pleasant today, aha..."

"Fascinating," Carlos said, blinking his wide, brown eyes that reminded Cecil of a cartoon deer. "May I touch them?"

"O-oh, um, sure!" Cecil replied. "I mean, if you want."

"Thank you." Carlos stood on tiptoe and stroked the petals of the largest flower, a blue rose-looking thing that Winifred had given him earlier that month as a gift. Cecil held his breath and bit his lip. He couldn't ever be really sure how close something or someone was to him because of his rotten depth perception, but he knew that Carlos was closer to him right now than any man had been in years. And he wasn't disgusted, or examining him, or just - just being how normal people were around him.

"Interesting," Carlos whispered. "Very interesting." And then, too soon, he dropped to the flats of his feet and adjusted his glasses. "Thank you."

"Oh, um, sure! Anytime!" Cecil answered, biting his bottom lip.

"Oh, um, Cecil, your face is all red," Carlos said. "Do you need sunscreen?"

"What?" Cecil touched his cheek. Burning hot. Oh, no. "Oh, um, n-no thank you, I'm fine. A-anyway, I, uh, I should be going. Bloodstone circle time, all that, aha. Uh, g-good seeing you again!" And before Carlos could say anything else, Cecil took his cane and began to walk down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of where he wanted to go.

When Cecil got home, he threw his cane, sunglasses, monocular, and hat on the floor, groaning about what an idiot he was.

\---

It had been a few months and Cecil couldn't even deny it anymore. He was really, hopelessly in love with Carlos, who probably didn't even care that he existed. They talked every now and then, sure, and sometimes Carlos would even call Cecil on the phone about breaking science stories for Cecil to report. But that was about the extent of their relationship.

Cecil would nervously pace throughout his house, flip through the albums, and get distracted when helping Old Woman Josie, He'd even bought the poor woman expired milk twice. (He got her some good milk out of his own pocket to make up for it, but it didn't make him feel any less stupid.)

There was just a nagging feeling in his chest, that there was something so terribly wrong with him that Carlos could never see him for who he was. Carlos was beautiful compared to Cecil, what with his dark skin and eyes and scruffy beard and curly, thick hair, and his, well, everything. He was cute and manly and gorgeous and Cecil was. Well. Cecil.

"He looks like a Q-tip," people in school used to say.

"Hey, Casper! Hey, Powder, where ya goin'?" tourists slurred before being taken away by the Sheriff's Secret Police.

"I bet you're not even blind!" people told him. "I bet you're faking for attention. You don't have it that bad!"

"Tch, good morning, Santa Claus," his classmates had said when he had started to grow facial hair in high school. Cecil still didn't have a beard.

"Watch it, Grandpa!" when he bumped into people.

"Sorry, Cecil," Steve said, "but this isn't working out."

Cecil curled up in his chair, the one with the albums next to it, and covered his face.

\---

A year later, and Carlos finally said, "So, um... I'm calling for personal reasons."

Cecil tried to dress his very best, and the time worked out to his benefit that it would be dark enough where he just had to wear his regular glasses, not his sunglasses and giant, embarrassing hat. A date! A real, genuine date! In public!

And Carlos let Cecil hold his arm, and read the menu to him at the nice restaurant when Cecil had trouble reading it, and still didn't press him with any questions or awkward stares.

"You know, um," Cecil stammered when there was a lull in the conversation. Carlos looked up from the raw, bloody Portobello mushroom. "Just, uh... Thanks."

Carlos furrowed his thick, black eyebrows, confused. "For what?"

"Just for, uh, for not making a big deal out of my, you know." He made a large circle gesture around his face. "This."

"Your albinism?" Carlos echoed. Cecil nodded. "Why would I make a big deal out of it? It's rare, but it's not weird."

Cecil's heart stopped. "You... you really think so?"

"Of course. I'm a scientist. I know these things. You don't need to thank me for treating you like a person."

Cecil tried not to cry and failed miserably. Because yes, he did. He did need to thank Carlos.


End file.
